


Revisiting Montfermeil

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Series: Web Series AU [10]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't copy to another site, Foreshadowing, Gen, Javert POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 21:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17905946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: Javert revisits the case that has eluded him for so long.This is the accompanying piece toEpisode 84of theMysteries of 24601 Web Series AU.  This won't make too much sense if read by itself, but you're more than welcome to try.Warnings:reference to the possibility of a child predator (no details)





	Revisiting Montfermeil

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, to my incredible beta-reader [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait). :)

_Euphrasie Tholomyes, Dad_ , Camille had said. _She’s your missing link._

Javert turns the information over in his head as he walks back home from the cathedral. It’s Saturday, so he has nowhere to be following his morning run, but the November chill drives him to walk just a little more quickly than he might otherwise.

He had expected Camille to stop visiting once the pretense of proximity was no longer there, but upon graduation Camille had decided that she couldn’t afford to live on her own in Paris on a criminologist’s salary and asked to move in with him.

They both know that she makes more than him. Neither of them say anything.

Last night Camille had informed him that she was inviting herself into his personal investigation--her birthday case, she likes to call it. Their monthly investigations into the internet personality’s mysterious father had been a crawl in the best of times and had since slowed to a stop. As of late their efforts to continue the baseless research were becoming increasingly outlandish to the point of taking more time to invent than disprove. 

“We’re reviewing your investigation together,” she’d announced, dropping a box onto the kitchen table. “You’ve been trying to crack this case for as long as I’ve been alive: clearly you need a set of fresh eyes.”

Javert had sighed, but something in his heart warmed at seeing his daughter settle down with a girthy manilla folder and setting to work on the project that had plagued him for so many years.

“Where did you get these?”

“I put in a request at the other places you worked for the files that they’d had on him. Not gonna lie, I wasn’t expecting all of this over petty theft.”

Javert grimaced. “He also committed breaking and entering and destroyed private property, thereafter attempting to escape police custody,” he grumbled. “In any case, he did his time for that--he’s wanted now for breaking parole and his _second escape_.”

“Not my circus, not my flying monkeys,” Camille had responded with a shrug.

They'd worked in silence the first hour, each taking their respective notes with only the occasional comment.

“Dad, your notes say you pursued Valjean, at the time under the pseudonym Madeleine--did they even bother with a background check on this guy?--all the way to Montfermeil, where he was brought into custody before escaping. A year later you write in a report that you were called out to Montfermeil for a kidnapping that you believed was related just after Christmas 2003.”

“Before his first arrest he asked permission to retrieve a child from there: I’m certain it was him.”

Camille makes a face. “Weird. But think about it: nothing about this guy checks out for violent crime nor indicates him to be any kind of predator. Character witnesses in Montreuil say he was kind to children and even paid the court fees for an illegal immigrant. Lots of volunteer work, not a word against him.”

Javert had raised his eyebrows at her, unimpressed. “A criminal is a criminal, Camille.”

“I know, and I agree, but what would Jean Valjean do with a child? If he kidnapped her, there’s nothing to indicate that he had malicious intent. Abusers can hide in plain sight, true, but this guy checks none of the usual boxes. Why would he take her?”

He’d paused to think. “The immigrant. She was deported. He had promised her he’d look after her child.”

“There you go then. You’ve been looking for a caucasian man in his fifties or sixties all this time, when you should have been looking for a caucasian man and a mixed-Haitian child.” She threw down papers in front of him, the immigrant’s next of kin circled in blue pen. “Euphrasie Tholomyes, Dad. She’s your missing link.”

 

The rest of the night hadn’t revealed much more than he had already known, but the fresh perspective stays with him as he walks up to his house. _Euphrasie Tholomyes_. 

Valjean is no stranger to pseudonyms--Montreuil-sur-Mer had proved that much--so a name wouldn’t be of much help. The Thénardiers had proven useless in the search, unable to provide even a single photo of the girl they referred to as “Colette”; the foster system they had claimed to have retrieved the girl through had had no record of the girl at all. Follow-up calls and visits to the Thénardier residence had proved fruitless. 

He steps in the door and heads to the kitchen, putting on some coffee to brew through his shower. A note is next to the coffee maker indicating the Camille will be out of town with her girlfriend for the weekend.

According to the documents, the child should only be two years younger than his own Camille--not really a child at all. Assuming she went to school, that’d place her at the beginning of her final year of university. He scoffs in the spray of the shower: as if Valjean would be able to enroll a child in school without the proper paperwork.

But then, he had also become mayor of a town with no one the wiser: it isn’t an altogether outrageous conclusion to come to that the child has indeed been well-cared for over the years. He continues to think on it as he dries off and selects his clothing.

He doesn’t unplug his smartphone until he’s dressed and doesn’t look at it until he’s already sipping from a university mug. His only notification is from Youtube indicating that his and Camille’s web series has a new video.

He types out a text to Camille, much faster than his ‘dumb phone’ days now that he has access to a full keyboard.

 

[06:36] **You:** Our show has a new video.

 

He expects to have to wait several hours for a response, but it comes almost immediately.

 

[06:38] **Camille:** Watch it w/o me! I’ll check it out tonight, and we can discuss tmrw evening!

 

There was a time where the offer wouldn’t have interested him, but since beginning the series Javert has found himself reluctantly attached to the host. The confirmation that her father is a product of the French prison system and has done such an excellent job raising the girl on his own only further bolsters Javert’s personal investment in her success.

He taps the red icon on his phone, clicking the notification and opening the newest video. Javert props the phone up on its kickstand as the introductions begin, cracking eggs into a hot buttery pan through the intro music.

By the time he’s able to properly turn his attention to the video, it’s already over and counting down to the autoplay of another. Did he bump it?

He cancels the autoplay and examines the length: sure enough, not even a full two minutes. He slides the eggs onto a plate and moves to the kitchen table, sliding the box of documents to the seat next to his usual place and restarting the video.

 _Ép_. There’s something in the familiarity with which it’s used that makes Javert think that it’s probably her normal nickname, but there’s something else about her.

Right, she’s the daughter of that scummy local family that cons tourists. He’s never been able to nail them for anything definitive, not even back--

Back in Montfermeil.

Javert is standing and digging through the boxes before the video comes to its completion, barely hearing the guest tell the host to turn off the camera. It’s doesn’t matter, he’s found what he’s looking for: their records on the Thénardiers: two daughters, one named Éponine. “ _Also answers to_ Ép.”

He restarts the video and pays closer attention to their relation. 

_under my parents’ care before Monsieur F got her_

He pauses the video, examining the host more closely. He can’t determine her to be Haitian with any certainty, but her skin is light enough that it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe that she might be mixed-race. How old had she said her father was before the summer? He thinks of the numbers tattooed on the man's arm, the processing that his very own Toulon had performed on every prisoner that passed through and is suddenly digging through the box for a document he has seen without seeing for over two decades now.

The paper is soon clenched in his fist as he opens the phone app, shaking.

“Hello? This is Detective Javert. I need a warrant: I have reason to believe that the local university has information that could lead to the arrest of escaped prisoner 24601.”

**Author's Note:**

> Only one more chapter!! What do you think will happen?
> 
> Author's note: for many of these, the order that you read them or the chapter doesn't matter, but for the next one (and I'll put it in the beginning notes as well), I'm going to recommend you read the accompanying piece first.
> 
> The next episode is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17935034).
> 
> Anxious? Excited? Have any predictions? What do you think will happen? Let me know in the comments below OR reach out to me at my [tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com)!


End file.
